A JEWISH peer who fled the Nazis as a child with the help of Christian missionaries is now paying to rescue 2,000 Christians from the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria and Iraq.

Lord Weidenfeld is paying to fly Christians out of ISIS-controlled countries

Lord Weidenfeld said he has “a debt to repay” to Christians fleeing Islamist fanatics because followers of the religion in Britain helped him escape almost certain death at the hands of genocide-committing dictator Adolf Hitler.

ISIS militants have slaughtered hundreds of Christians, who they believe to be heretics, since sweeping to power in large parts of the Middle East last year.

Now Lord Widenfeld, a millionaire publisher, is spearheading a drive to fly Christians at risk of torture and death out of ISIS-controlled countries.

He has set up the Weidenfeld Safe Havens Fund, which last week supported the flight of 150 Syrian Christians to Poland on a privately chartered plane.

The self-made businessman arrived in Britain on a train in 1938 with just a few shillings to his name.

He was fed and clothed by the Quakers and the Plymouth Bretheren, and went on to establish the Weidenfeld and Nicolson publishing business a decade later. He was made a life peer in 1976.

The 95-year-old told The Times: "I had a debt to repay. It applies to so many young people who were on the Kinderstransports. It was Quakers and other Christian denominations who brought those children to England.

"It was very high-minded operation and we Jews should also be thankful and do something for the endangered Christians."

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Christians have been displaced and persecuted in the Middle East

The fund aims to offer 12 to 18 months of paid support to the refugees. However countries including the United States have declined to participate in the scheme because it excludes muslims who are also being targeted by ISIS.

Christians, as well as Yazidis, Druze and Shia Muslims are being persecuted by the terror group in Syria and Iraq.

The Christian populations of both countries have fallen dramatically in the past decade, however, and Lord Weidenfeld defended the project’s narrow focus.

He said: "I can’t save the world, but there is a very specific possibility on the Christian side. Let others do what they like for the Muslims."

He added that he hoped to replicate the work done by the likes of the late Sir Nicholas Winton, who saved 669 children destined to be killed in Nazi concentration camps during the Holocaust.